You lot are not filling me with confidence for tomorrow's 4 x 1mile reps I don't want to change it, even though I also did the MP run on Sunday. Hopefully today's strides will loosen up my hamstrings and the extra day before the VO2max session will make a difference.

if you want to see a course profile with elevation, MapMyRun.com is pretty good. Previous runners have uploaded their garmin / GPS for various races, and you can "find a map" http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/

Type "london marathon" and filter races at least 26miles, and you'll get lots of results.

reassuringly, they're all very similar for the London marathon, with net elevation gain circa 270m

I did my 5x 600m reps earlier - easier for me as I didn't do the MP run on Sunday. Also an absolutely beautiful morning which always makes you feel more energetic, so got beeped at to slow down a lot. Times came out relatively even though: 2.20, 2.18, 2.12, 2.18, 2.12. Also successfully avoided tripping over a small dog on the last interval.

HeOw - Can your physio help with the foot taping? If not try you tube 'kinesio tape foot'.

The ive v +ve splits discussion is lively on another thread with a number of different views. My personal view is that if you were to race both the 1st and 2nd half as individual half marathons the 1st half would be the quicker of the two everything else being equal. Therefore for a constant effort I would expect a +ve split.

Lots of reading back and lots of interesting stats and I'm in the camp of 1:27 for the half way point and that's what I did last time with a poss split of 3 mins.

The inclines are short 70m max but can slow you up so be on the ball to get back on pace after getting up them. I agree about the docklands area a number of twists and turns, again this is the start of where you need to switch on and keep the pace going.

We are drowning in snow . No intervals possible. Pavement is about 1/3 covered in ice - treacherous but not enough ice/snow to wear Yaktrax. Wot a pain. Hope this shit goes by the weekend. Will try to do the intervals then. I bet this crap cold weather stays til April 21st when all of the sudden a heatwave will appear from nowhere to really mess up our race times

I'm not racing at the weekend either, but will be doing my missed MP run on Saturday, as I'm busy on Sunday doing an all-day corde lisse workshop (circus rope climbing). I'm seeing it as cross training.

Men, I agree, a slight positive split is NO bad thing, in fact, it is pretty impossible to truly race a marathon from the gun and negative split. I just think a 15-30 min positive split (unless dreadful weather, injury, very hilly second half course etc) would indicate you have started too fast and it is something I am aware of. I think I had a 13 min positive split at Manchester (partly due to weather, mainly due to starting way too fast and Garmin not working) and 4 mins at Chester. The 4 mins was not too bad but would like to lessen that for Manchester.

Literatin - you are very speedy chuck.

Chickadee, you bet - weather really messes up our racing!

Trail run for me in a bit, looking forward to it and hoping foot works better. I am getting my PB Walsh's (fell shoes) out of retirement as I think they will work better with my foot as they initiate forefoot strike and all this slow heel striking running is making foot worse.

15W, am aiming for sub 3.15, and will go for 3.10 if I pace it evenly, and 3.15 allowing for a slight positive split. I feel I should aim for 3.14.59 to have earnt my right to be in the championship start.

Chick, nooooo, nothing involving the sort of drops that make your stomach go funny. Next is probably more prosaic rock climbing or something. It's all good for the core.

Am running London, so don't know if I get a pacer but might try to make friends with someone similarly paced at the start -- I think they shove all the speedy ladies together at the front. I'll at least be able to get a sense of how fast everyone else is going and I have a friend doing it too who's just a couple of minutes quicker than me.

Craig, Strides are a controlled acceleration to the fastest you can go without becoming ragged (ie maintain a good running form), You should look like a proper runner running fast, not the gangly pulling for tugs muccas that we all look like on a rep desperately trying to hold onto a paceand then slow back down. I guess when you have a series of 6 strides in a run depending on when you run them the pace will vary.

Just over 8 miles done on trails - just under 1100ft of climb in bastard ankle deep mud. First time I have properly had sweat patches for a couple of months! Guess what... the foot was fine. As I knew it would. So it seems, my decision to drop trails from plan has been another cause to the issues so, will be doing at least 2 of my runs a week on them. NO PAIN AT ALL! I was running along them and thinking "this is why people could run on and on in the olden(!) days, they had NO bloody tarmac or concrete. Had I wore no shoes, my foot would still have been fine. Back to trails for me.

I have only done one set of strides in this plan. That's my PB fucked innit?!

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